Big data, climate change and Paris agreements

Vincent-Henri Peuch explains how big data will help utilities play their part in upholding the historic climate change deal agreed at COP21.

The fresh agreement on our climate future at COP21 comes at the close of a year of remarkable climate events. Observations by Copernicus, the European Union’s flagship earth observation programme, have confirmed that:

• December 2014 to November 2015 was the warmest 12 month period on record.
• The Antarctic ozone hole observed over the last few months is amongst the largest ever – around 25 million km², or the same size as North America.
• Emissions from wildfires in Indonesia – exacerbated by an exceptionally dry season in 2015, the current El Niño event and land clearing fires – resulted in more CO₂ being released into the atmosphere in September and October 2015 than by UK industry’s entire 2013 output. 

The global environment is undergoing significant change. Faced with this knowledge, it is incumbent on policymakers, industry and the scientific community to equip society to adapt to our changing environment and try to prevent further harm. Now an agreement has been reached at COP21, the next step on that journey is for nations to consider its implications in practice; the policy signals and investments that will in part determine our climate’s future.

Utilities also have a clear role to play. The global demand for affordable clean energy is one of the major challenges facing society today, whilst water remains both our most important resource and, as recent events in Cumbria show, an ever increasing danger to lives and livelihoods. However planning for the changing environment is not only essential to our climate future, it is also vital in underpinning future growth and sustainability.

By harnessing the predictive power of programmes like Copernicus, utilities can target investment for growth and to protect vital infrastructure in a changing world.

Big data driven solutions

The European Commission’s Copernicus programme is the ultimate in environmental “big data”. Utilising the European Union’s Sentinel Satellite Network, a plethora of contributing satellite missions from Europe and worldwide, thousands of land and marine based sensors, millions of readings every hour and a century long archive of data and research, it builds a global picture of our climate and provides a window into its future, free and open to all.

The programme has the potential to transform the certainty with which citizens, policymakers and businesses make decisions, allowing them to consider trends and variations on timescales of just a few days to decades in advance.

The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) and Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), delivered by the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts in Reading, UK, are already offering valuable insights into our climate future. These include near real-time analysis of the chemical composition of the atmosphere to provide daily forecasts of UV, air quality and greenhouse gases.

When fully operational the services will provide open access to a one stop shop of climate data and modelling, analysing around 20 variables to build a global picture of our climate and developing customisable climate projections for key economic sectors. The potential applications for utilities is vast, including helping wind, solar and hydro energy firms decide the most effective location for new facilities, and strengthening the governance of water resources by helping companies identify areas most at risk of drought or flooding.

Now the negotiations at COP21 are over, data is set to play a key role in deciding our climate’s future. Through the European Commission’s Copernicus programme utility companies have an opportunity to harness “big data” like never before, not only to contribute to a better world, but to do so in a way that ensures their resilience, secures investment and delivers growth.